Guild Wars 2

Surprise

So if you play a Thief you’ve probably come to terms with a lack of a reliable max range weapon, spamming our Cluster Bomb Arrows and crying while you bleed your initiative until the enemy’s dead.

Well I’m not for laying back and just spamming my shortbow like a sap. I mean, why should a warrior, an Elementalist, an Engineer, a Mesmer, and really every other class have a weapon capable of combat at 1200 Range? Warriors are capable of extreme amounts of damage in melee, so that justification is out. Thieves need to be stealthy; Can’t stealth really after you blast someone in the face with a blackpowder pistol. Its a stealth class; more like its an elusive misdirection class. How does it even justify in the class; how does a mesmer justify a greatsword, the idea is the thief takes on the role of a sniper or an elusive guerrilla fighter who takes pot shots and a barrage of fire before slipping away and striking from a new angle.

Weapon Focus

The Focus of the weapon is not so much the power of the weapon but how precisely the shots can be delivered, so the weapon would lean more towards a critical build. The Idea of course is to be the Guerrilla fighter, attacking fast and staying on the move, with high mobility and rapid attack.

Weapon Skills

1. Burst Fire
1 second channeling

Fire series of quick shots that deal an average amount of damage.
Damage falls just above Short bow, x 3
Range: 1200

Animation would be close to the warriors where the Thief shoulders the rifle and fires.

1S. Ambush 2 second cast

Unleash a powerful shot from stealth dealing high damage and penetrating the target’s armor and unbalancing them.
High Damage, Akin to Tactical Strike
Stun 1/2(s)h
10 stacks of Vulnerability

Thief Fires from a kneeling position as stealth breaks, reuse Kill shot without charge up.

2.; Shadow Volley
1 second Channel
8 Initiative

Shadowstep in rapid succession to fire a barrage of shots from different locations.
About the same damage as Burst Fire, x15
Range: 1200

Animation would be something akin to Thief shouldering rifle and 4 shadowy clouds liken to shadowstepping fire 3 rounds each at the target. Thief does not actually shadow step.

3. Stalking Bayonette
4 Initiative

Shadowstep to your target, thrusting with your rifle’s bayonette.
Deals damage nominally higher than Rapid Shot.
Range: 600

Animation: Thief Shadowsteps to target and thrusts with rifle

3. Blasting Retreat
3 Initiative

Blast your target and return to the place you shadowstepped from.
Deals relatively high damage, slightly higher than Stalking Bayonette
Shadow Return
Range: 600

Thief fires from the hip and shadow returns.

4. Wild Stock Strike
5 Initiative

Execute a series of wild strikes to overwhelm your target. Gain Endurance with final strike.
Deals low very low damage x3
25% of Endurance generated
Knockdown
Range: 150

Thief swings rifle back and forth. Swing across body hitting with Stock, Thrust from over shoulder with Stock, then savage kick.

5. Slip Away
6 Initiative

Fire a distracting shot and slip into the shadows, leaving target dazed.
Very low damage once.
Stealth 3(s)
Daze 2(s)
Range: 1200

Thief shoulders rifle and fires a shot at head of enemy hit box and enters stealth.

Ending Words
I typed this up with minimal sleep, if you see some illogical mistakes or grammatical errors please ignore them unless they are completely bothersome then alert me. If you have a criticism speak it, if you have a complaint make it, but if you have a flame stuff it back down your throat and attempt to post with civility.

Night

UPDATE

Readjusted Initiative costs
Changed #1 Ability to the one suggested earlier
Increased cast time of Stealth Skill

It would be nice to get a dev opion on this topic and see how they feel with these ideas. Personally I would love to have a rifle on my thief, it would look amazing with all these assassin-like medium armors.

While I really like the concept of Thieves having rifles, if your ideas on the abilities were implemented it would be crazy overpowered. The rifle would become the go-to power/crit weapon of choice.

It shouldn’t be able to stealth. Nor should it be able to shadowstep to a target (shadowstep away could work)
I like the vulnerability, and dazes, but a knockdown as well is a bit too much. Perhaps give it a knockback, and a blind – to keep it on the same level as pistol abilities (as it is still a gun)

6. could be a black powder blast. Where it shoots a low-mid range damage shot, that explodes on impact in an aoe leaving a blind field akin to black powder.

Instead of the shadowstep, and the barrage, maybe something similar to how hard to catch works. Shoot a few shots off and shadowstep away.

Great ideas though, but definitely needs some more thorough and comprehensive thought.

Raise initiative costs by 1 across the board.

I like this. However, I agree that it might be too good.

Also with a greater range, you would need to balance out the movement speed and skill speed to be slower. Otherwise you would be able to kite most melee mobs easily without much problem.

Thieves aren’t about max range. This would throw balance out the window. What kind of dark-alley bruiser carries a full-length semi-automatic rifle?

So you`ll be shooting from afar, it will be hard to pursue you since you will be running with 25% speed + stealth + shadowstepping=) It`s not bad concept but it would require some serious limitations in speed and stealth

the idea is interesting but thief with more range is broken =p

Taobella.6597:

the idea is interesting but thief with more range is broken =p

How? Every other profession gets 1000-1200 range and we get 900. Thieves are extremely hard to play in WvW when you gata get super close up as a squishy profession just to even hit something. I’d rather see a crossbow added since rifles are sort of loud and not “stealthy” although I like you skill ideas (except the rapid shadow step skill, that would be too confusing for both the player and any enemy they are against). The basic attack of a long range weapon for thief would have to be just above SB basic attack since sb basic bounces leading to higher dmg if there is 2 enemies there (it bounces, bounces back for 2 hits). Still interesting skill ideas.

The 2 ability doesn’t have you actually shadowstepping, just implying you are, it just makes the clouds in random places near you and those fire two bullets each. The damage is actually really rather LOW, at 80 the main attack would do 400-500 damage non-crit with no excess stats ( Not traited or armored). So, like any other critical build, weakness and toughness makes you absolutely worthless.

Yes it has the potential to be extremely kitey but the skills are made towards being EXTREMELY aggressive and in the enemies face, the only real balance issues would come from resource use and the wild strike. However, over all, the idea is to keep the damage low and constant, the issues it would address with the thief class are twofold in PvE and PvP, lack of a range weapon, and lack of a consistent damaging weapon.

The amount of control on the rifle doesn’t really contribute in a one on one since its rather short and quick.

Now I matched initiative costs of these abilities to abilities LIKE them across all of the thief weapons.

Oh yes, and after a very nice conversation with one of the staff I had sometime ago, it was made abundantly clear they plan to add no new weapons in the near future. So Crossbow can be forgotten about, got to make due.

I also suggest anyone calling out the idea as context breaking for the class actually read the OP, because as far as I’ve felt while playing the class, my thief feels more like a brawler than an assassin or a thief, so to me, the idea of using a rifle fits.

If any class should be able to use rifles it’s rangers.

I think that was explained officially why they don’t in an interview.

I really like the idea, even though it does sound a bit over-powered. My main is a thief and I hate having to use my bow when I am in the dungeons. I want to be more useful in a dungeon group so I think that this rifle idea would be perfect for that.

NinjaEd.3946:

Taobella.6597:

the idea is interesting but thief with more range is broken =p

How? Every other profession gets 1000-1200 range and we get 900. Thieves are extremely hard to play in WvW when you gata get super close up as a squishy profession just to even hit something. I’d rather see a crossbow added since rifles are sort of loud and not “stealthy” although I like you skill ideas (except the rapid shadow step skill, that would be too confusing for both the player and any enemy they are against). The basic attack of a long range weapon for thief would have to be just above SB basic attack since sb basic bounces leading to higher dmg if there is 2 enemies there (it bounces, bounces back for 2 hits). Still interesting skill ideas.

super squishy profession? no; super squishy build ¬¬ any class can be tanky (ive seen stealth healing builds take out several people in a row preying on one road in WvW before a group of four came along (two of which they managed to down)

theives have the advantage of stealth to mitigate range, defending keeps should barely be an issue as clusterbomb will help kill the invaders faster/theyre at the gate (close enough to hit)

i dislike this idea

This addition would give thieves more options than carrying a short bow around 24/7 just so they can spam a very very slow arcing explosive shot.

Hm… I also like the rifle for thieves. And at least 3 of the skills should have 1200 range.
But I’d rather have the rifle centered on singling out enemies and applying ranged pressure. Using initiative as bullets.

Something like this:

1. Burst-fire.
   1200 range. 1.5s channeling.
   A skill that shoots three low damage bullets in succession, like with an assault rifle with burst-fire, followed by a short pause. (Something like the elementalist’s stone daggers)
   Combo finisher: Projectile (20% chance).
   Can be traited to pierce enemies (max 3).
2. Bullet time
   400 range. Instant activation. 5 initiative.
   A skill that shoots like a shotgun as it evades in the direction of movement (backwards if not moving), hitting up to 5 enemies within a cone in the aiming direction.
   Combo finisher: Leap.
   Gain vigor (3s) if you hit 3 enemies or more.
3. Till it goes click.
   1200 range. 4s channeling. Special cost: 1 to all initiative.
   A kill that once activated shoots low damage bullets at the target, 3 shots per second, 1 initiative per shot, until you run out of initiative or interrupt it with another action.
   Bullets cause random conditions: Blindness (1s), crippled(3s), bleeding(2×5s), or confusion (1×2s).
   Ends prematurely if you run out of initiative before it ends.
   Combo finisher: Projectile (10% chance).
   Can be traited to pierce enemies (max 5).
   Preparedness increases max possible duration by 1s, as it adds +3 initiative.
4. Snipe.
   1500 range. 5 second activation (immobile). Special cost: ALL initiative of a FULL initiative bar. Even with Preparedness.
   An all-or-nothing sniping skill that makes the thief immobile for 5 seconds while they aim, and after that it deals a single shot of great damage that has a higher chance to deal a critical hit if the target is immobilized.
   It makes you Revealed for 10 seconds after use, since it’s REALLY loud.
   Combo finisher: Projectile.
   Can be traited to pierce enemies (max 5), but dealing less damage to each successive enemy it hits.
5. Reload.
   3s activation. 45s recharge.
   A skill that recharges all initiative.
   It’ll be exceptional in that unlike other thief weapon skills it doesn’t use initiative, but has a recharge instead.
   Also, nothing will affect Reload positively, like making it recharge faster or activate faster, including quickness. It can be affected negatively, though, like with chill or interruptions.

• Related traits:
  - Preparedness alters some of the skills.
  - Jacketed bullets would be a new Master tier trait in Trickery that would make some rifle and pistol skills pierce through enemies.
  - Some pistol traits will also affect some rifle skills.

To put it simply, a thief with a rifle should sacrifice most their the defense, speed, control and mobility in exchange for range and damage.
Something you can use from a keep in WvW to take out key targets, as opposed to spamming AoEs with a shortbow, but definitely not something you’d bring to a swordfight.

That’s definately some unique thinking but the question is does it actually fit a thief or does it belong better to another class? I personally think everyone’s taking the damage I posted out of context. Its not going to be comparable in damage to a Greatsword warrior. In fact the damage is more in line with a Thief Shortbow.

I’ll do some tweaking but I personally think people are overreacting to what I posted with no context to put it in.

“Too much Control,” “Too OP,” both of these statements tell me you haven’t played thief with a sword and pistol, which has between the two weapons, Two Stuns, Two Dazes, a Cripple, a Weaken, an Immobilize, a Shadowstep/Return, and a Smoke Field, as well a skill comparable to Hundred Blades in damage capacity. ( its MUCH higher than the famed Unloaded of dual wielding pistols ) All of this while being in melee range.

The Damage of this weapon is small, meant to be focused on precision to bring out bigger hits through critical damage, which easily countered by weakening the carrier, a condition every class has the potential to carry, and by persistent melee pressure, as most of the control takes a bit to setup, or has a high initiative cost. The weapon I proposed is likely one of the weakest weapons in a Thieves’ arsenal, and the only outstanding trait about it is its range.

As for the stated above Rifle, I do like the Burst Fire skill, and I feel it fits better with the gun I proposed, if its not minded, I’d like to use it.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Hm… I also like the rifle for thieves. And at least 3 of the skills should have 1200 range.
But I’d rather have the rifle centered on singling out enemies and applying ranged pressure. Using initiative as bullets.

Something like this:

1. Burst-fire.
   1200 range. 1.5s channeling.
   A skill that shoots three low damage bullets in succession, like with an assault rifle with burst-fire, followed by a short pause. (Something like the elementalist’s stone daggers)
   Combo finisher: Projectile (20% chance).
   Can be traited to pierce enemies (max 3).
2. Bullet time
   400 range. Instant activation. 5 initiative.
   A skill that shoots like a shotgun as it evades in the direction of movement (backwards if not moving), hitting up to 5 enemies within a cone in the aiming direction.
   Combo finisher: Leap.
   Gain vigor (3s) if you hit 3 enemies or more.
3. Till it goes click.
   1200 range. 4s channeling. Special cost: 1 to all initiative.
   A kill that once activated shoots low damage bullets at the target, 3 shots per second, 1 initiative per shot, until you run out of initiative or interrupt it with another action.
   Bullets cause random conditions: Blindness (1s), crippled(3s), bleeding(2×5s), or confusion (1×2s).
   Ends prematurely if you run out of initiative before it ends.
   Combo finisher: Projectile (10% chance).
   Can be traited to pierce enemies (max 5).
   Preparedness increases max possible duration by 1s, as it adds +3 initiative.
4. Snipe.
   1500 range. 5 second activation (immobile). Special cost: ALL initiative of a FULL initiative bar. Even with Preparedness.
   An all-or-nothing sniping skill that makes the thief immobile for 5 seconds while they aim, and after that it deals a single shot of great damage that has a higher chance to deal a critical hit if the target is immobilized.
   It makes you Revealed for 10 seconds after use, since it’s REALLY loud.
   Combo finisher: Projectile.
   Can be traited to pierce enemies (max 5), but dealing less damage to each successive enemy it hits.
5. Reload.
   3s activation. 45s recharge.
   A skill that recharges all initiative.
   It’ll be exceptional in that unlike other thief weapon skills it doesn’t use initiative, but has a recharge instead.
   Also, nothing will affect Reload positively, like making it recharge faster or activate faster, including quickness. It can be affected negatively, though, like with chill or interruptions.

• Related traits:
  - Preparedness alters some of the skills.
  - Jacketed bullets would be a new Master tier trait in Trickery that would make some rifle and pistol skills pierce through enemies.
  - Some pistol traits will also affect some rifle skills.

To put it simply, a thief with a rifle should sacrifice most their the defense, speed, control and mobility in exchange for range and damage.
Something you can use from a keep in WvW to take out key targets, as opposed to spamming AoEs with a shortbow, but definitely not something you’d bring to a swordfight.

I like the idea behind some skills but giving a thief a rifle with cooldowns means he is no longer a thief. I prefer having no rifle instead of one that practically ruins the idea of the class

Xtinian.4731:

I like the idea behind some skills but giving a thief a rifle with cooldowns means he is no longer a thief. I prefer having no rifle instead of one that practically ruins the idea of the class

Agreed, it feels more like its become a Ranger weapon.

I’m down with this as long as it follows initiative points.

Everyone loves snipers they can’t find in video games.

Bump and an update. Going to talk to one of my Anet buddies to pass a note in house. Maybe get an opinion stated. In the mean time I’m going to tweak the ability ideas.

I like the idea of getting more reliable ranged options for the thief and would love to have a “sniper” option. I do think it’s kinda sad that only 2 classes can use the rifle.

However, if this is only about balancing the Thief at range, maybe start with some faster attack speed on the bow?